‘West Indian by conviction’: The Caribbean says farewell to poet and author Ian McDonald

‘West Indian by conviction’: The Caribbean says farewell to poet and author Ian McDonald
Ian McDonald was the consummate writer. Sure, he was naturally curious, demonstrated deep insights about his subject matter, and had his own voice — but he was also a master of various genres, meaning he could pretty much write anything.
Primarily known as a poet, McDonald penned 11 poetry collections, most recently “The Impossibility of Nothingness.” Once, in admiring “his deft use of dialect; his nature poetry, steeped in the mysteries of the Guyanese interior; his sobering awareness of mortality,” Macmillan Caribbean called him “South America’s equivalent of Robert Frost; a poet writing in a young country who, with an open heart and in clean, honest language, has set down its characters and events, its landscape, traditions and myths, for future generations to discover.”
But his poetry, while outstanding, is generally not the work that people associate with Ian McDonald. His novel “The Hummingbird Tree,” which came out in 1969, was the only novel he ever wrote, but he did it so well that once was enough — it soon became a classic of Caribbean literature. Set in 1940s Trinidad, the novel follows the heartbreaking journey of Alan, a white boy who befriends his wealthy family’s Indian yard boy.
Against the region’s pre-Independence backdrop, such an association may seem risky enough, but Alan complicates things even further by falling for his new friend’s sister, who also works for his family. The story is a deeply perceptive examination of societal boundaries based on race and class, even as society itself is perched on the cusp of significant change.
In his poetry as in his prose — whether it was his seminal novel or his Stabroek News column that he maintained for nearly four decades — McDonald was able to somehow hone in on the core of Caribbean life; what made it tick. To so seamlessly capture the nuances of regional societies in all their muddy complexity, while leaving room for tenderness and empathy, made McDonald beloved by readers.
Often referred to as a Guyanese writer, as he called Guyana home for most of his adult life, McDonald was actually born in Trinidad on April 18, 1933. A true Caribbean man, his father’s family had ties to both Antigua and St. Kitts, while his mother was Trinidadian.
In the summary of his biography, McDonald famously described himself as “Antiguan by ancestry, Trinidadian by birth, Guyanese by adoption, and West Indian by conviction,” which Bocas Lit Fest, in acknowledging his passing on July 24, said made “clear his regional consciousness and commitment.” Bocas’ Facebook post continued, “His death at age 93 [is] an immense loss for Caribbean literature and culture.”
The eldest of six, McDonald grew up in St. Augustine, where his father was the agricultural director for the export company Gordon Grant Limited. Writing, however, was in the family; his grandmother was the poet Hilda McDonald, who also became the first woman member of the Antiguan House of Assembly.
McDonald was educated at Queen’s Royal College in Port of Spain, where he excelled at both academics (with distinctions in History and English) and sport (tennis, specifically, though he was always a passionate supporter of West Indies cricket and in his later years would go on to represent Guyana in squash). He studied History at Cambridge University from 1951-55, where he became captain of the tennis team and was elected as president of the Cambridge University West Indian Society. He graduated with honours and later received his Master’s degree. While in the UK, McDonald also competed in the Wimbledon singles championships and played for the West Indies in their first-ever Davis Cup match in 1953.
After university, he took up a position in then British Guiana with the British company Booker Group, which at the time owned several sugar estates. When the enterprise was nationalised in 1976, changing its name to the Guyana Sugar Corporation, he stayed on until his retirement in 1999. McDonald represented both Guyana and the wider Caribbean Community (CARICOM) at international conferences related to the sugar industry.
He was also very active in civic life, working for various causes that were close to his heart, including education, regional integration, and sport. The pull towards writing never left him, however; his first poems were published in the 1950s and have since appeared in countless anthologies. He also wrote short stories and even a play, “The Tramping Man,” but “The Hummingbird Tree” solidified his influence as a regional literary voice after it won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize from the Royal Society of Literature for best regional novel.
The book still makes regular appearances on the regional English curriculum, and in 1992, the same year that the novel’s publisher, Heinemann, released a new edition, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) produced and aired a film version of the story.
McDonald also edited the literary journal “Kyk-over-al,” co-edited two anthologies of Caribbean literature, and was — in the words of Bocas — “a friend and mentor to generations of Caribbean writers.”
Upon learning of his passing, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali called McDonald “a literary figure of worth and one of the Caribbean’s distinguished sons. Dr. Ian McDonald was the Caribbean made flesh: Antigua’s blood ran in his veins, Trinidad cradled his first breath, Guyana claimed the fullness of his years, and the West Indies claimed his soul.”
Ali’s Facebook tribute continued, “He was a poet of rare grace, a scribe of eloquence, a keeper of our fragile, fierce cultural flame […] He showed us that language is the scaffolding upon which we build our tomorrows. His verses sang of both our fractures and our wholeness, our anguish and our ecstasy, stitching the frayed tapestry of Caribbean life into something luminous and lasting.
It is sad that he should leave us now, when the hour is so dark and our nation longs for the wisdom that flowed from his pen […] May his soul find the peace that his words so abundantly gave.”
Guyana is currently in mourning over a ferry tragedy that resulted in the deaths over 70 people.
McDonald was active well into his twilight years, winning the 2024 Guyana Prize for Literature for his poetry collection “Chasing the Marbleau,” and writing for the Stabroek News right up until it ceased printing in March 2026. In one of his last columns, he described poetry as “the quiet passion of my life,” remembering how his mother would read him old nursery rhymes at bedtime. “They had the lilt of poetry in them,” he explained, “which stayed with me forever.”
In remembering McDonald, the Trinidad-based Paria Publishing quoted the last line of the author’s book “Inheritance — the Story of a West Indian Family”: “What one inherits, and what one in turn passes on, is the stuff of life itself and always will be.”
“We find consolation in our fond memories of Ian and especially in his poems, where he celebrated the personal bonds that transcend human mortality,” Bocas Lit Fest shared. “As he once wrote: ‘There is no limit to our love, / even death will set no limit.’”
McDonald leaves to mourn his wife, Mary; their two children, Jamie and Darren; and his son Keith, with his first wife, Myrna.
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